Januar | 2014 | Fosbury Luther Lindbergh

We are currently updating our website. Removing some old work, adding some new stuff.
When we briefed the creatives, we asked ourselves a very simple question:
how often do companies, people or institutions update their website with current informations?
And when was the last time you did it? Been a while, right?

Okay, now think about search engines. Most of us use them daily, if not hourly.
We´ve inhaled the importance and relevance of search engines as our main information provider.
But that importance has rapidly vanished during the last five years. Especially when it comes to consumer engagement.
If people have something to say, show or communicate, they say it via Twitter, facebook, Pinterest, tumblr, Instagram.
And search engines are hardly indexing anything of what is said via the big social networks.

Don´t get us wrong – search engines are still extremely important as kind of a “business wikipedia”, providing us with relevant informations about companies and products.
But looking at the ever faster turning wheel of communication and being up-to-date in any respect, they are lagging as far behind as a snail trying to catch Usain Bolt.

And especially when it comes to interacting with your consumers and trying to make them become part of your brand,
recency is mandatory. How can a brand be ourageously in when the message it delivers or the topic it brings up is insanely out?

Today, I definitely use twitter and even Pinterest a lot when it comes to being in the loop on events, news and – first and foremost -
on what people are currently up to or moved by.

Or – in a nutshell: for rational information gathering, there´s search engines. For the latest emotionally involving news and topics, there´s social networks.

“Real time” searches may not carry as much commercial intent compared to search engines.
But we shouldn´t underestimate the additional value of an information that doesn´t only contain the information but also
the reaction to it. After all, communication is no one-way street. Even though many brands and companies still consider
the consumer a passive recipient of their marketing sermon. Of their OLD sermon, that is.

So don´t waive search engines when you have the time to look for some solid informations and data.
But if you and your brand are looking for the talk of global town, go social.

How facial recognition can revolutionize consumer engangement.

Market research often leads to epic failure. And while the word “research” is normally associated with science that leads to product innovations for a better living and economical prosperity, things are unfortunately the other way round in the marketing industry.

With research institutes asking people artificial questions and getting artificial, irrelevant
results that appeal to the rational thinking related part of our brain (neo cortex) – which may be best suited for giving clever answers but not for giving even the slightest hint on how the customer feels and what his true insights are – most brands are waisting money and
opportunities on an grand scale.

But help is on the way! Rana el Kaliouby and her MIT Media Lab colleagues are the minds behind Affectiva, an ambitioned start up
with the potential to rewrite the rules of marketing research and consumer engagement.

Affectiva invented Affdex Facial Coding, an automated facial-expression-recognition technology able to measure and even interpret
viewers´ emotional responses to brands, advertising campaigns an any other digital video content.
Good news for the few people in Adland that are capable of telling the story behind their clients´ brand in an emotional way and relevant way.

Facial Coding will finally seperate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to analazing and understanding consumers needs, feelings and wishes. “You can understand so much about how consumers perceive a brand by analyzing their spontaneous,
subconscious responses. If you are a contant creator looking to elicit a certain emotion, we can validate that. In cases where an ad
is trying to elicit e.g. humor, we can tell you if people consider it funny.”, el Kaliouby reveals in the US magazine Entrepreneurs´ January issue.

The Affdex software works with any standard webcam across connected laptops, tablets and smartphones, paying tribute to fact that consumers
interact with brands via various screens and putting emphasis on multichannel marketing as well.

“People chek their phones an average of 150 times a day – to us, that´s an exciting opportunity, el Kaliouby points out.

And to all creatives in the advertising industry, Affdex is a big step towards getting adequately paid for a great idea.
Not to mention getting rid of time wasting & redundant focus groups or telemarketer surveys by – literally – technical knockout…

Archiv für den Monat Januar 2014

LATE IS AS GOOD AS NEVER. RETHINK WEB SEARCH.

IN YOUR FACE, RESEARCH!